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Welcome to the Dickerson Lab: News

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Random bits of news from the Dickerson lab and related venues...

  • Fall 2019: Congratulations to Dr. Alex Touroutoglou who published a review in Cortex and a chapter in Dr. Vogt's volume of the Handbook of Clinical Neurology on the functions of the cingulate cortex, including motivation.
  • Summer 2019: Congratulations to Dr. Bonnie Wong who led our group's publication reviewing our approach to the diagnosis and management of Posterior Cortical Atrophy.
  • Summer 2019: Congratulations to Dr. Jiahe Zhang who defended her dissertation and published our latest paper on SuperAging; see below for more information.
  • Spring 2019: The special issue of Hippocampus in memory of my mentor Dr. Leyla deToledo-Morrell, guest edited by Dr. Dickerson, was published.
  • May 2019. 2019 American Academy of Neurology meeting. Dr. Dickerson directed the Neurology of Social Behavior course and teach in Dr. Gorno-Tempini's Primer of Behavioral Neurology course and Dr. Apostolova's course on Biomarkers in Dementia Assessment. Dr. Dickerson and his team also presented new research.

  • April 9 2019. For the 5th year, Dr. Dickerson chaired the MA/NH Alzheimer's Association Spring Research Forum. We were excited to present a panel discussion of a review of research and current cutting edge thinking to over 300 attendees. The panel participants included Drs. Ben Wolozin, Dorene Rentz, and Olivia Okereke. Click here to watch a video recording of the program.

  • Winter 2018-2019: Congratulations to Claire Cordella who defended her dissertation and obtained her PhD!
  • Fall 2018: We launched the Longitudinal Early-onset AD Study (LEADS), a 15-site study being led by Dr. Dickerson and colleagues Dr. Liana Apostolova (Indiana U), Dr. Gil Rabinovici (UCSF), Dr. Maria Carillo (Alzheimer's Association).
  • Fall 2018: We welcomed Sheena Dev, Neguine Rezaii, Shaz Kim, Erin Krahn, & Rania Ezzo to the lab.
  • Summer 2018: We welcomed Ryn Flaherty & Ryan Eckbo to the lab. We said a fond farewell to Kay Sweeney.
  • Dr. Dickerson and team presented new data and ideas at the 2018 Alzheimer's Association International Conference and the Alzheimer's Imaging Conference in Chicago in July 2018.

  • Spring 2018: We said a fond farewell to Sara Makaretz and Haroon Popal who are moving forward with career development; congratulations and we will miss you! We welcomed Taylor Delp to our program.
  • June 8, 2018. Dr. Dickerson spoke at the Partners Aging Brain symposium.

  • April 2018. 2018 American Academy of Neurology meeting. Dr. Dickerson directed the Neurology of Social Behavior course and taught in Dr. Gorno-Tempini's Primer of Behavioral Neurology course, Dr. Mendez's Principles of Cognitive Assessment course, and Dr. Apostolova's course on Biomarkers in Dementia Assessment. Dr. Dickerson and his team also presented new research.

  • April 4 2018. For the 4th year, Dr. Dickerson chaired the MA/NH Alzheimer's Association Spring Research Forum. We were excited to present a panel discussion of a review of research and current cutting edge thinking to over 300 attendees. The panel participants included Drs. Cynthia Lemere, Steven Arnold, and Andrew Budson. Click here to watch a video recording of the program.

  • March 2018. The 22nd Charles River Association for Memory meeting. We celebrated the scientific work of the late Dr. Howard Eichenbaum with memory experts from around the world. See the CRAM website for more details.

  • Fall 2016: Dr. Dickerson and team spoke at the 10th International Conference on FTD in Munich, Germany on August 31.
  • Fall 2016:
    Dr. Dickerson spoke at the American Society of Anesthesiologists' Brain Health Summit meeting in September.

  • Summer 2016: 20th Annual Harvard Dementia Course
    Drs. Dickerson and Atri were once again proud to direct the comprehensive CME course on dementia for health care practitioners, featuring leading faculty from Harvard and from around the country and abroad. The course was held June 8-11, 2016, at Boston's Copley Plaza Hotel.Click here to access supplemental program information.

  • Summer 2016: We are proud that Christina Caso moved on to work with our former colleague Dr. Kimi Domoto-Reilly in Seattle Washington. We also said a fond farewell to fellows in the FTD Unit: Drs. Chenjie Xia, Joel Salinas, and Alessandro Biffi.
  • May 2016: Dr. Dickerson's new book on FTD was published by Cambridge University Press; it's available from Amazon.
  • May 2016: Dr. Dickerson spoke on the aging brain at the International Anesthesia Research Society in San Francisco, CA in a session aiming to better understand how anesthesia affects cognitive function.
  • April 2016: Thank you to the more than 100 attendees and the faculty who gave presentations and facilitated breakout discussions at our 5th FTD Caregiver Education day held at the Westin Waltham, April 29, 2016.
  • Spring 2016: 20th Charles River Association for Memory meeting
    Drs. Eichenbaum, Dickerson, Schacter, and Gabrieli were delighted to host the 20th meeting of the Charles River Association for Memory, featuring talks by memory experts from around the world, including two of our field's Nobel Laureates. See the CRAM website for more details.

  • October 2015: Thank you to the more than 215 attendees of our first FTD Unit Gala; read more here.
  • March 2015: At the 26th meeting of the American Neuropsychiatric Association, Dr. Dickerson was delighted to chair a featured session on atypical forms of Alzheimer's disease, featuring talks by himself, Dr. Ali Atri, Dr. Melissa Murray, and Dr. Mario Mendez. In addition, Dr. Dickerson's team presented original research in the oral and poster sessions.
  • March 2015:
    19th meeting of the Charles River Association for Memory (CRAM). Drs. Dickerson, Eichenbaum, Schacter, and Gabrieli directed this twice yearly CRAM meeting, this time featuring outstanding speakers reviewing dietary, exercise, and TMS-related interventions to aim to improve memory.
  • January 20 2015: My mentor, Dr. Leyla DeToledo Morrell, 73, passed away. Throughout her professional life, Leyla studied the mechanisms of learning in the brain. She was also a leader in the field of Alzheimer's research, giving hope for early treatment interventions by identifying risk factors for developing Alzheimer's disease. Leyla leaves a solid legacy of scientific discovery and achievement. She will be missed by her family and by the many scientists around the world for whom she was an inspiring colleague.
  • October 2013: Our new scale, the Social Impairment Rating Scale (SIRS), was published. Contact us for information on how to use it. The study led by our MD/PhD medical/graduate student, Kevin Bickart, demonstrated atrophy in particular brain networks in FTD in association with impairment in specific domains of social behavior. This study was done in collaboration with my close colleague Dr. Lisa Feldman Barrett.
  • October 2013: My colleague and friend Dr. David Wolk and I analyzed ADNI data and found that CSF biomarker measures and our AD-signature MRI cortical thickness measure provide complementary information in predicting decline in patients with MCI, as reported in Frontiers in Aging Neuroscience.
  • September 2013: A basic science functional neuroanatomy study of the large-scale network-level organization of the human temporal pole was published in Cerebral Cortex, led by our former post-doc Dr. Belen Pascual.
  • August 2013: We began conducting T807 tau PET imaging in Frontotemporal Dementia spectrum disorders.
  • May 2013: The reliability of the new diagnostic criteria for bvFTD were demonstrated by our multi-center collaborative group, as reported in Neurology in a study led by Dr. Lamarre.
  • April 2013: My collaborator Dr. Feldman Barrett and I reported with our team that affective experience during the viewing of emotional pictures was associated with different patterns of activation within the brain (measured with fMRI) between men and women. See the study in SCAN, led by our post-doc Dr. Joe Andreano, for details.
  • March 2013: Our new findings were published in Neuroimage on the cortical signature of normal aging, which is very distsinct from that of AD and clearly demonstrates that AD is different than aging, although there is at least some spatial overlap in these processes.
  • March 2013: "I'm beginning to be a believer in familiarity-based memory measures as a dissociable indicator of early AD." I said this to my close collaborator Dr. Wolk when we found the relationship between this behavioral measure and my cortical thickness measure of AD pathology, the AD signature. Our paper in Neuropsychologia provides the details of this study.
  • Jan 2013: Our case report with Drs. Daffner and Perez and colleagues highlight a variant of Primary Progressive Aphasia not described in the new diagnostic criteria.
  • December 2012: The Posterior Cortical Atrophy working group paper was published, summarizing our discussion of priorities for research in this underserved area at the AAIC meeting in Vancouver, July 2012.
  • October 2012: Our new findings were published in Journal of Neuroscience showing that functional conne$ the amygdala and key regions in large-scale brain networks subserving perceptual and reward-related behavi$ size of healthy adults' social networks.
  • December 22 2011: Our new work on the Alzheimer-signature MRI biomarker was featured in more than 20 news outlets, including the Boston Globe, ABC News, CBS News, the Huffington Post, Medscape News, and Alz Forum. Read the scientific paper under the publications link.
  • Fall 2011: Dr. Poulin, formerly in our group, investigated the amygdala in Alzheimer's disease and found a surprising amount of shrinkage, raising the possibility that this may contribute to a variety of symptoms, particularly including changes in emotional processes, in the disease. Read about it in publications.
  • Summer 2011: Dr. McGinnis in our group published a paper on the topography of age-related cortical thinning in relation to normal brain development. Read about it in publications.
  • To read our April 2011 paper on detection of Alzheimer-related brain shrinkage in cognitively normal adults who develop AD dementia nearly a decade later, click on publications.
  • Click here to read about our ongoing work on$
  • Click here to read about the news regarding the use of spinal fluid tests to assist in the diagnosis of Alzheimer's disease, including a here to read about the newly proposed revised criteria for the diagnosis of Alzheimer's disease, including a NP$ interview with Dr. Dickerson.
  • Click here to read about our new research on the effects of different types of the APOE gene on the cognitive and anatomic expression of mild Alzheimer's disease, which was featured in a recent paper in PNAS.
  • Click here to read about our new research on large-scale functional brain networks and memory, including a new paper published in the journal Hippocampus.
  • Click here to read more about our studies on high resolution imaging of the human hippocampus, published as a special issue in the journal Hippocampus.
  • Click here to read about our paper on the "Cortical signature of Alzheimer's disease, featured in the March 2009 issue of Cerebral Cortex This article was selected as a Faculty of 1000 Medicine article--read about it here.
  • Click here to read more about our ongoing studies on frontotemporal dementias, primary progressive aphasia, posterior cortical atrophy, and related disorders.
  • Spring 2011
  • To read our new paper on detection of Alzheimer-related brain shrinkage in cognitively normal adults who develop AD dementia nearly a decade later, click on publications.
  • Winter 2010-2011
  • Click here to read about our ongoing work on the amygdala. Our new paper in Nature Neuroscience was featured by many media outlets.
  • Fall 2010
  • New research from the lab was presented by Daisy Sapolsky, Aly Negreira, Kimi Domoto-Reilly, Belen Pascual, Mike Brickhouse, Mark Hollenbeck, and Liang Wang at the Society for Neuroscience meeting in San Diego.
  • Summer 2010
  • Click here to read about the news regarding the use of spinal fluid tests to assist in the diagnosis of Alzheimer's disease, including a NECN TV interview with Dr. Dickerson.
  • Click here to read about the newly proposed revised criteria for the diagnosis of Alzheimer's disease, including a NPR-Boston interview with Dr. Dickerson.
  • We had an excellent 2010 Summer brain camp, with students at a variety of levels. Thanks to Aly Negreira, Mike Brickhouse, and Daisy Sapolsky in particular for coordinating an outstanding learning session.
  • Spring 2010
  • Click here to read about our new research on the effects of different types of the APOE gene on the cognitive and anatomic expression of mild Alzheimer's disease, which was featured in a recent paper in PNAS.
  • Winter 2009-10
    • We said a fond farewell to Drs. Lucille Pellerin and Stephane Poulin; both will be missed as they return to France and Canada to resume their activities after productive fellowships with our lab.
    • New research was presented at Massachusetts Alzheimer's Disease Research Center annual meeting
    • One of the world's most famous neurologic patients, H.M., passed away at age 82.
    • Click here to read about our new research on large-scale functional brain networks and memory, including a new paper published in the journal Hippocampus.
  • Fall 2009
    • New research was presented at the Society for Neuroscience by Aly Negreira, Daisy Sapolsky, Jon Dashkoff, Akram Bakkour, and others affiliated with the lab.
    • We participated in an outstanding Fall Charles River Association for Memory meeting at MIT focused on frontal lobe contributions to memory.
    • The MGH FTD Unit sponsored and organized the First Annual Boston area FTD Caregivers' Conference.
  • Click here to read more about our studies on high resolution imaging of the human hippocampus, published as a special issue in the journal Hippocampus.
  • Summer 2009
    • New article published on the ultra-high resolution structural imaging of the human hippocampus."
    • We had an excellent 2009 Summer brain camp, with students at a variety of levels. Thanks to Akram Bakkour, Aly Negreira, and Daisy Sapolsky in particular for coordinating an outstanding learning session.
    • We said a fond farewell to Akram Bakkour as he went off to grad school, and to Jon Dashkoff as he went off to med school. We welcomed back Pete LaViolette, who joined us to do some outstanding research work this summer.
  • Click here to read about our paper on the "Cortical signature of Alzheimer's disease, featured in the March 2009 issue of Cerebral Cortex This article was selected as a Faculty of 1000 Medicine article--read about it here.
  • Spring 2009
    • Spring CRAM meeting
    • American Academy of Neurology meeting
  • Fall 2008
  • Summer 2008
  • Spring 2008
    • Spring CRAM meeting
    • American Academy of Neurology meeting
  • Winter 2007-2008
    • Mass. ADRC annual research symposium
  • Fall 2007
  • Summer 2007